(a) Data in this table are on a revised international merchandise trade basis and exclude value adjustments applied to balance of payments series. Unit values for the latest month have been suppressed in this table because of the size of the iron ore value adjustment.

On an international merchandise trade basis, in original terms (noting the footnote in the above table), between September and October 2012 the largest movements recorded for the following selected commodities were:

Quantities of iron ore lump exported rose 11% with quantities to China up 16% and quantities to Republic of Korea up 26%.

Mexico rose $81m (262%), with quantities up 204% and unit values up 19%

China rose $70m (35%), with quantities up 42% and unit values down 5%.

COUNTRY BREAKDOWN

The following charts show Australia's major trading partners for the financial year 2011–12. The charts include both trade in goods (on an international merchandise trade basis) and trade in services (on a balance of payments basis). The first chart shows the countries with the largest two–way trade i.e. combined trade in both exports and imports of goods and services. The second chart shows separately total exports and total imports, for the ten countries in the first chart.

TOTAL VALUE OF TWO–WAY TRADE, By major countries 2011–12, Percentage share

EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF GOODS AND SERVICES, By major countries 2011–12

Combining trade in goods (on an international merchandise trade basis) and trade in services (on a balance of payments basis) provides a good approximation of total trade. Some components will be excluded (e.g. Merchanting credits and Goods procured in ports by carriers debits) while the Manufacturing services on physical inputs owned by others component, will be double counted. These components are unlikely to impact on the broad analysis.

Imports data with the confidentiality restrictions 'no commodity details' or 'no value details' are excluded from the individual country and included in 'no country details' in the detailed breakdown presented in the time series spreadsheet table 14b. In 2011–12, these restrictions represented 3% of the total imports value, however this figure does vary across individual countries. In table 14 of this publication, the 'no country details' data is included in 'other countries'.